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Purpose
BallRoom provides a unique way of customizing your phone's appearance and function.
The program lets you define what is displayed in the upper-left part of the phone's screen (the so-called application icon area),
and what action is performed when touching that area.
Besides many other uses, BallRoom has the unique ability to display permanent animation on the phone while switching between running programs.
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Compatibility
BallRoom can be installed and executed on all smartphones running on Symbian 9.x with UIQ 3.x.
User-defined actions that require touching the icon area are supported only on phones that have a touch-screen.
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Installation
The distribution package can be installed directly by using the PC install program,
or after uploading the .sis file to the phone.
Refer to your phone's User Guide for details on installing.
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Application icon area
The upper-left part of the phone's screen is called the application icon area.
In the case of most programs a static icon is displayed in the area.
Exceptions are applications that occupy the whole screen.
BallRoom replaces the icon area with various dynamic contents
(indicated by red arrow on the illustration).
Content can be defined separately for the upper and lower halves of the area.
Icon tap functions can also be assigned to the two icon portions.
The icon replacement is visible in all flip modes,
provided the foreground program uses the standard application icon area,
and no any menu or pop-up window obscures the area.
By default BallRoom's content is not visible over programs that use full-screen mode.
The Permanent icon display option can be used to override this limitation.
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Main view
The main view of BallRoom consists of two pages, selectable using the Top and Bottom tabs.
The identical controls on the two pages let you define what to display on the two respective halves of the application icon area,
moreover what actions to perform when touching parts of the area.
Details of customizing the BallRoom icon are described in the following sections of this document.
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Setting display content
Opening the Content control displays a list of selectable content types for one half of the icon replacement.
Available content types are:
None: The icon area half is covered by the theme background, but no content is displayed.
Time: The current hours and minutes are shown.
Date: The current month and day are shown.
Day: The day of the week is shown.
Free memory: The amount of available free memory (RAM) is shown in megabytes.
Battery level: The remaining battery level is displayed in percentages.
Image: An image is displayed that you choose upon selecting this list item.
The last choicelist item lets you quickly select the last used image.
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Displaying images
All popular file types are supported, including animated GIF files.
Only one image can be displayed at one time.
When the Bottom icon portion is set to None content, then the image set for the Top half occupies the whole icon area;
in all other cases the image is displayed only in the selected portion.
Small images are centered within the icon area, while large images are resized to fit within the area.
For best results, use 53x53 pixels images for full-size, and 53x26 pixels for half-size display, respectively.
JPG and BMP images are only scaled to the icon area when no application is selected for permanent icon display. GIF and PNG images are never resized, while transparency and animation are supported.
Two small default images are supplied with BallRoom: BR-BallsFull.gif for full-size display, and BR-BallsBottom.gif for diplaying on the bottom half.
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Changing text color
You can set the colors used when displaying any text content.
First, select the display Component whose color you want to change.
Available choices are Text and the Outline surrounding the text.
Second, use the Color control to choose a color for the selected component.
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Setting icon tap actions
You can define actions that are performed when the icon area is touched.
Actions for short and long press can be set separately, using the Short tap or Long tap controls, respectively, that display a list of selectable actions.
Available action types for touch-screen phones are:
None: No action is performed when touching the icon.
Configure: Display the main view of BallRoom for changing content or action.
Status message: Pop up a message showing time, date, week of year, available memory, and battery level.
Cycle contents: Switch to the next available text content type.
The content types None and Image are omitted.
Cycle tasks: Bring the next running application to the foreground.
Applications that are known to use full-screen mode or to have no display are omitted.
End current task: Exit the application which is currently in foreground.
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Action icons
Action icons are visual reminders for the currently assigned icon tap actions.
When the option is switched on, small icons representing the action are shown in the BallRoom area, behind the text content if any.
Short and long press actions are indicated on the left and right side, respectively.
Action icons are only displayed when the Content is other than Image,
and when the Start application option is selected for the icon tap action.
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Permanent icon display
The Permanent command, available from the application menu,
brings up a list of all installed programs.
From the list select applications over which the BallRoom icon should appear even at times when the application would not display its regular icon, like in the case of full-screen applications.
Maximum ten applications can be selected for permanent icon display.
If you mark more than ten programs, those additional to the first ten will be ignored.
Make sure you only choose applications that run in full-screen mode.
Selecting normal applications will conflict with the normal icon display/hide mechanism of BallRoom.
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Known issues
Transparency can be limited when the Permanent icon display option is used over full-screen applications.
Some programs use the screen in a way that prevents transparency over their display area.
A significant example of such behavior is the Standby application on the Sony Ericsson P1 phone.
The landscape screen orientation, furthermore all-black and transparent themes may also cause similar faults.
When such problems are encountered, switch off the Permanent icon display option for the application over which the BallRoom icon can not be displayed with correct transparency.
JPG and BMP images are only resized to the icon area when no application is selected for permanent icon display.
GIF and PNG images are never scaled, to support transparency and animation.
On Motorola UIQ3 phones the indicated battery level is incorrect, due to a fault in the operating system.
The icon replacement is hampered when BallRoom is started up by the Bunch Launch application in flip closed mode.
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We at CellPhoneSoft hope you enjoy using BallRoom, and find it useful in making your smartphone a more pleasant experience. Thank you for using our product! |
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